


In Foreign Territory

by sternfleck



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Crystals, Duel of the Fates Timeline, Forbidden Soft, Force Visions, Hurt/Comfort, Kylux Positivity Week, Kylux Positivity Week 2020, M/M, Minor Injuries, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Sentient planet, Sharing Body Heat, Touch-Starved, my attempt at a slower burn than usual, stranded in the snow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:48:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25076389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/pseuds/sternfleck
Summary: After a shuttle crash on a mission to the future site of Starkiller Base, Kylo and Hux are forced to rely on each other for survival.But the ice planet of Ilum is a nexus of the Force, and the Force has its own opinion of their emerging bond.For Kylux Positivity Week 2.0, Day 6. Prompt: "Exploring New Worlds."
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 27
Kudos: 133
Collections: Kylux Positivity Week 2.0





	1. Out of the Wreckage

This isn’t a sign. This isn’t a portent. This isn’t an omen of things to come.

There is absolutely no mystical significance to the fact that, on Kylo’s first visit to the planet of Ilum—future home of the First Order’s Starkiller Base—his command shuttle has crashed into an ice pillar, splintering into hundreds of ragged black pieces, instantly killing all stormtroopers on board, and leaving Kylo and an injured General Hux as the only survivors, stranded in the deepening snow.

“What in the kriffing Galaxy happened to you up there, Ren? Were you _trying_ to sabotage this mission? I could have died! The Order could have been compromised! What if we freeze to death, Ren, what then? This mission wasn’t supposed to be for kriffing _reconnaissance_. I’m not a _scout_. I’m a General! I’m the commander of the flagship of the First Order’s fleet! We were meant to be conquerors, not—not explorers without any supplies or navigational equipment or reinforcements or data!” 

Correction: Kylo is stranded with an injured General Hux who didn’t even have the decency to get injured badly enough to shut the fuck up.

Hux is holding his hurt wrist to his chest, like it’s a wounded creature he could soothe with an embrace. He’s in his uniform, without so much as a coat to protect him from the elements. Did he expect to stay inside the shuttle the entire time, while Kylo and the ‘troopers stormed the few inhabited research facilities and secured the planet for the Order? He probably did. Hux is lazy, passive, entitled. A coward who expects others to make war on his behalf.

He’s also shivering, which shouldn't be as charming as it is. His lips tremble, their usual pink colour dimmed to pallor. He stares down at his wrist with wide, fixed eyes, as though he’s never been hurt in his life, which is probably the case. Hux is far too arrogant and sheltered to have ever known true pain. Kylo stays out of Hux’s head, disgusted by his occasional glimpses of Hux’s thoughts, which are, without exception, smug, boring, and routine.

Still, Kylo has these inconvenient physiological responses to Hux. Sometimes, when he spots Hux barking orders on the _Finalizer_ ’s bridge, Kylo gets lightheaded from the quick plunge of blood to his loins. Other times, in situations like this one, when Hux is vulnerable and pathetic-looking and out of his depth, Kylo gets a different feeling he struggles to explain. It’s like arousal, but it’s located higher up, somewhere in his chest. It makes Kylo want to do terrible, forbidden things, like pulling Hux close and keeping him warm. Pressing kisses into Hux’s slick pomaded hair. 

Kylo is supposed to make use of all his feelings, good and bad, to strengthen his connection to the Force. But he doesn’t need Snoke’s training to tell him that encouraging this feeling would be dangerous. It would open a door in his psyche that Kylo, with all his strength, would never have the power to close.

So Kylo trudges through the snow instead, away from the shuttle’s wreckage, towards the icy, crystalline cliffs on the horizon. Hux follows him, alternating between tirades of complaint and troubling silences in which his presence in the Force goes dim with pain.

“This is your fault,” Hux whispers, still cradling his wrist, which is bent at an uncanny angle. “You know it. I know it. Supreme Leader Snoke will read your mind and know it. He’ll punish you. I ought to punish you now, if I had the resources. But we don’t have any kriffing resources now, do we, Ren? Night will fall and we’ll die here and no one will remember we even existed, all because you had to go into a kriffing _fit_ while you were breaking atmo, like the unstable, incompetent, mystical good-for-nothing you are.” 

It wasn’t a fit. Kylo tried to explain after the crash, after he pulled Hux from the wreckage to receive only spite and blame as his thanks. The Force on Ilum has a presence stronger than anything Kylo has felt in years. When he was flying through the blizzard’s whiteout, dodging towering pillars of ice, he’d passed over a seep of Force energy pouring from the kyber caverns beneath the planet’s surface. The upwelling had thrown Kylo’s mind into harsh visions. The Light and the Dark in their eternal conflict, speaking through every mouth in the Galaxy. Trillions of hands reaching out to tear him in two, to claim him. The next thing he knew, Kylo was on his back in the snow, thrown from the shuttle. He was saved from the impact by a Force-field he’d put up around himself while unconscious. Unfortunately for Kylo, Hux was nearby, which means Kylo unwittingly saved him as well.

Kylo ignores Hux’s insults, his petty fears. “If we can make it to the kyber caves before night, the Force will shelter us from the cold. I can draw from its power to send a signal to the Supreme Leader.”

Hux halts. He’s shivering more fiercely now, head bare, his striking hair crowned with flakes of snow. A few strands of his fringe have fallen down to his temples, clinging there, wet with snowmelt. Kylo has been using the Force to warm his own blood, but Hux has no such ability, and for a moment Kylo feels sorry for him. He takes his pity and turns it into a sharp Dark twinge of pleasure at Hux’s suffering.

“Forgive me, Ren,” Hux says, in a tone that suggests he neither requires nor expects forgiveness for anything, ever. “I see no evidence that the Force has provided you with anything but skill in battle and an insufferable personality. Why would you expect me to believe it can save us? We may as well lie down in the snow and pray to the spirits of the ancients. It would be a merciful death compared to marching for hours through an ice field to get to some cliffs made of more kriffing ice.”

“Your lack of faith can’t diminish the power of the Force,” says Kylo, walking away. “It will preserve us whether or not you believe.”

 _It’s already saved your skinny ass once today,_ Kylo doesn’t say, because he can already hear Hux’s crisp, snide reply. Hux would point out that without the Force, they wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. Which only goes to show how little Hux understands. 

In spite of his ignorance, Hux has no choice but to follow Kylo, trotting to keep up. He moves unsteadily, not used to planetary gravity. Hux’s polished boots slip on the ice, and he falls. Tendrils of pain pour out of him into the air as the motion jostles his snapped wrist. Hux catches himself on his uninjured hand, cursing. When Kylo glances down, disdainful of Hux’s clumsiness and his impractical uniform, Hux is gazing up at him with wide, pained eyes.

Hux’s eyes are green, a soft grey-green like frost on grass. His eyes and his hair are the only colour in this landscape, where flurries of snow block the weak white starlight and obscure the horizon’s cliffs. His pale lips are parted, breaths ragged with exhaustion and pain. He’s so fine-featured, like he belongs in a painting, not in a war. Like he should be on a throne, not freezing and injured at Kylo’s feet.

“I’m not going to carry you,” says Kylo with a twist of his lip, announcing this new rule to himself more than to Hux. “Get up. We’ll only get there if we keep moving.”

Hux’s wide eyes open wider. His nose twitches. “I wasn’t expecting you to, Ren.”

There’s something unsteady in Hux’s voice that has nothing to do with the pain or the cold. But Hux says nothing more. He gains his footing again, and the pair move on, squinting against the snow. 

“Are you certain these cliffs contain what you’re looking for?” Hux asks, after a long silence. “Don’t give me false hope of survival. That’s all I ask. If I have to die alone with you, tell me now, so I can grieve my ambitions without wasting my last hours wondering about sacred crystals and the Force.”

Kylo is tempted to lie to Hux, to tell him they’ll both be dead by nightfall, just to see the rage and shock and reluctant gratitude on Hux’s face when Kylo takes him into the kyber caverns and shows him the power of the Dark Side. But Hux never reacts to Kylo’s manipulations as Kylo would expect. The reality never matches Kylo’s fantasies. So Kylo tells Hux the truth.

“I’m certain. The Force shows me. And this planet is familiar to me. It was in the memories of a boy I once knew.”

Today’s thwarted mission to Ilum is the First Order’s first official attempt to claim the ice planet as an Order territory, in hope of developing it as the monstrous weapon of Hux’s design. It’s also Kylo Ren’s first visit to Ilum. But the boy called Ben Solo ventured here once before, many years ago. He went with Skywalker and his bevy of students, the ones who would later die by Kylo’s hand. As if from a past life, Kylo recalls the underground caves of kyber crystal, glowing green and blue. The presence of the Force, strong and heavy all around him, holding him up like saltwater in a warm, calm sea.

The crystal in the lightsaber on his hip was harvested on Ilum. It had been blue then, intact, without the rift through its centre that leaves it unstable now. Ben Solo had been so afraid to undertake the ritual of crystal Gathering, afraid that the Force in the caverns would see the truth of him and cast him out as a pretender among the Jedi aspirants. But Ben Solo was ignorant. The Force holds no such petty moral prejudices. The Force cares only for power, and even when he was called Ben Solo, Kylo Ren was always powerful.

The kyber caverns had welcomed his power and accepted him completely, the Light of him and the Dark. Young Ben Solo had found in the Force what he has never found in sentient beings, with their closed minds and fickle hearts. The Force had shown him power as a means to this unconditional acceptance, and it was in that moment that Ben Solo had made the right choice to give himself completely to the Force in return. Even in all his naïveté, Ben Solo had glimpsed his true path—not the Jedi way, nor the way of the Sith, but the way of pure power by any means necessary, with no obsolete codes to bind him.

Kylo’s lightsaber thrums in sympathy with the other crystals beneath it. In the Force, shadowy and insistent, a vision presents itself of a mapped maze of tunnels filled with kyber, each one winding down to the planet’s core. The cliffs ahead are honeycombed with entrances to these caverns. Inside, shelter from the snowstorm, and better, the raw strength of the Force. It’s pulling Kylo in so strongly that he’s already warm at the edges, soaked through with power.

His thoughts divert, his attention pulled abruptly away. A wave of pain rolls out of Hux’s presence in the Force, stronger and harsher than the blasts of freezing wind pouring down from the white sky. Hux’s pain has the tone of a cry bitten back for too long, of something suppressed rising inevitably to the surface. Hux has been holding back, trying to ignore his injury and remove himself from the awareness of his pain. But this pain isn’t from his wrist. From the new tension in the Force, Kylo understands that Hux hurt his ankle, too, when he tripped on the ice. He never said a word, only marched on at Kylo’s side.

On the whole, Kylo doesn’t have much respect for soldiers. They show their mental and spiritual weakness when they surrender all individuality to obey a set of petty rules. Hux is no exception—even if he’s the one writing most of the rules, he’s still bound by convention, imprisoned in a web of his own making. But Hux’s emotional control, to be able to suppress an injury so completely that the strongest Force empath in the Galaxy couldn’t even tell he’d been harmed? That control is pure Dark Side discipline. That’s something Kylo can respect, and even envy.

“Hux,” Kylo says, offering his arm. “Stop hurting yourself more. Here.”

For a moment, Hux only stands motionless, staring at Kylo’s arm, then glancing up at Kylo’s face. Not for the first time, Kylo wishes he’d been wearing his helmet at the time of the shuttle crash. It would insulate him from the cold, but more importantly, it would hide his unsubtle face. Now his every emotion is on display for Hux to witness. Kylo tries to school his features, to harden them, so that Hux doesn’t start thinking Kylo is the sort of man to have mercy on his injured rivals.

“Your pain breaks my concentration,” Kylo says. “It distracts me from the Force. I need to focus to direct us through the storm.”

This isn’t true. The Force is so strong here that Kylo could find his way to the kyber caverns even with an ysalamir draped around his shoulders. But he needs an excuse for holding out his arm to Hux, who still hasn’t taken it.

Kylo lowers his arm to his side again, blinking snow out of his lashes. “Fine. Don’t cooperate. This trip was for your weapons project. We wouldn’t be stuck here if you didn’t have a hard-on for destroying the New Republic.”

Hux’s eyes widen. His snow-flecked eyebrows are drawn together, his mouth tight in a pursed pinch. He looks, more than anything, worried. As though Kylo’s offer has deeply troubled his concept of the Galaxy he thought he inhabited until now. In the Force, complex feelings chase each other around Hux’s head, tangling until they leave Hux halfway terrified and totally unsure.

Kylo doesn’t want to see any of it. Whatever’s inside Hux’s head, it’s better for them both if Kylo forgets Hux has feelings at all. He’s practically a droid, anyway, with the way he spends his life following orders. Kylo turns, trudges away through the drifts of blown snow settling on the ice.

“Wait,” Hux calls.

He’s not far behind Kylo, and soon Kylo feels a tug at his elbow. It’s Hux’s gloved hand on his sleeve.

“You’re right,” says Hux, like the admission pains him worse than an injury. “I was being stubborn. I won’t turn down help if you’re offering. It’s not my intent to sabotage this mission. As if it’s not fucked already. Still.”

With his typical decisiveness, Hux puts his intact arm around Kylo’s neck, over Kylo’s insulated cloak. His grip on Kylo’s shoulder is tight, stronger than Kylo expected. There aren’t many opportunities for physical contact in the First Order—not without violence as a precondition—and at the delicate pressure of Hux’s body against his, Kylo has to take a deep breath through his nose, as though he’s entering a Dark meditation.

He slides his arm around Hux, holding him up with his hand spread around Hux’s slim middle. In spite of being chilled to the bone, Hux is still warm under Kylo’s hand, still losing body heat through his thin uniform. He shivers against Kylo, putting his weight on Kylo’s shoulders with each careful step. Their progress across the ice is slower this way, but it’s easier, too, for reasons Kylo doesn’t want to examine. Hux’s breaths beat time in Kylo’s ear, like a war drum urging him on, reminding him of all the reasons he wants to survive.

“You’re incredibly warm, Ren. Are you always this way?”

Hux’s voice is weak but steady. He tilts his face towards Kylo’s, studying his expression, as though he’s seeing him for the first time.

Kylo has been sharing his Force-generated warmth with Hux. He didn’t realise. It’s been flowing through his fingertips into Hux’s core. The colour is even starting to return to Hux’s lips.

“I run hot,” Kylo answers. But the way Hux looks at him makes him wonder if Hux knows Kylo’s Force powers are involved in his sudden change in temperature.

At any rate, Hux doesn’t pull away. He stays close, leaning on Kylo, light and slender in Kylo’s arms. The snow swirls around them, dimming the starlight to pale pearly grey, but in the Force, Kylo can sense the ice cliffs getting closer with every slow step.

“Ren?” Hux’s small voice again, so different from his usual bombast.

Kylo’s mouth is tight as he squints against a gust of snow. Hux hides his face from the wind. He buries his face in Kylo’s neck. The cold tip of his nose presses into the bare skin above Kylo’s cowl, and Kylo, without meaning to, leans into Hux’s touch. 

“What?” Snow fills Kylo’s mouth when he opens it to answer.

Hux hesitates, jerks back to get a sight of Kylo’s face. But the wind is too strong for him to speak into it, so he puts his face close to Kylo’s neck again.

“You have my gratitude,” says Hux unsteadily, and pushes his face into Kylo’s cowl once more.

Kylo doesn’t reply. It was polite of Hux, of course. The correct thing to say. But with Hux draped on him, held close, relying on Kylo for warmth and strength...Kylo doesn’t need kind words to boot. Not when the Light side of the Force is as strong here as the Dark.

Hux, Force-null and semi-conscious, doesn’t understand the risks. If Kylo touches anything on this planet without maintaining the right Force frequency, he could contaminate the crystals in their labyrinth of caverns, increasing their natural alignment to the Light Side of the Force. It will be Kylo’s task to bleed the kyber crystals that will fuel Hux’s weapon. Already, he’s facing months of work to retune the crystal matrices to the Dark Side, and, as Hux never fails to remind Kylo, the longer they wait to finish the Starkiller weapon, the deeper the Galaxy falls into chaos, disorder, and war. If Hux wants to win his war with a single shot, he can’t get soft on Kylo now. The stakes are too high. 

Kylo hoists Hux higher at his side. He’s slipping down, his grip on Kylo’s shoulder going slack. Hux squeaks when Kylo’s movement jostles his injured wrist. He stands up straighter, bears more of his own weight on his good leg.

“Not far,” says Kylo, not that it matters whether or not Hux knows where they are. Hux responds only with his heavy breaths and a long, exhausted glance into Kylo’s eyes.

The foot of the ice cliffs rises up through the blizzard like a great emptiness, a white mass whiter than the driving snow. The tops of the cliffs are riddled with holes and fissures wide enough to fly a speeder through, where, over the centuries, the energy from the crystals has warped the rock and the stacked snow. But at the base of the cliffs, the entrances to the caverns are sealed over, disguised. Only a Force user could pick a cave entrance out of the surrounding rock and ice. To Hux, it must look like Kylo has led them to a dead end. But Hux isn’t looking at the cliffs. His chin rests on his own chest, his snow-soaked hair falling into his eyes.

“Stand up. I have to cut through the ice to get us inside.”

Hux lifts his head, manages to get his footing. He pushes his shoulders back automatically, as if he’s trying to put his hands in parade rest. But he didn’t account for his injured wrist. Hux’s pain shoots sharply through the Force, and the tiny wince that crosses his face makes Kylo want to pull Hux into his arms again.

Kylo doesn’t. He unclips his lightsaber hilt, ignites the blade, and slashes again and again at the wall of ice with all his strength, transmuting his tender impulses into kinetic energy, into violence. The crackling red plasma stains the scene rosy. The ice steams with each hiss of his saber, sending clouds out into the snowy air.

One blow at a time, the thick ice gives way to a darkness that looks colder than the snow. It’s the narrow mouth of a cavern, just as Kylo saw it in the Force. The rock is black, sharp-planed, slick with ice where it opens down into the earth. Even to Kylo, who balks at nothing when it comes to environmental hazards, this cavern does not look like an inviting place to go. But the Force will protect them. The crystals near the core of the planet are large enough to amplify Kylo’s power and broadcast his call for help across the Galaxy directly to Supreme Leader Snoke.

Kylo powers off his lightsaber with a sharp hum. Because the floor of the cave is slick and steep here at the mouth, Kylo slips his arm around Hux’s waist again. Hux glances at Kylo in nervous surprise, but he doesn’t pull away.

“The Force lets me see in the dark. I’ll guide us. Hold on to me so you don’t fall again.”

Hux swallows. Kylo watches his throat bob. He’s shivering again without Kylo’s Force powers to warm him.

Without really meaning to, Kylo skims over the surface of Hux’s mind. But he pulls back from Hux’s thoughts as if burned. Hux’s desire to be close to Kylo again is at the top of his mind, unexpected and strong. It’s a poorly-hidden longing for Kylo’s warmth, his strength, the way he touches Hux, who has been touched so little in his sterile military life. Hux is hungry for it in a desperate physical way that would be pathetic if it didn’t hold such an uncomfortable resemblance to Kylo’s own feelings. On reflex, Kylo tightens his grip on Hux’s waist.

“How do I know you’re not going to drag me into the dark and trap me there all alone?”

This is an odd thing to say, oddly specific. And the way Hux’s voice shakes when he says it suggests that this is a fate Hux has suffered before. Perhaps Kylo was foolish to write Hux off as a spoiled beneficiary of First Order nepotism. Perhaps there are deeper secrets in Hux’s past. After their march through the blizzard, it’s clear Hux is stronger than he looks, or he wouldn’t be standing here now on his bad ankle, challenging Kylo like they’re still on the _Finalizer_ ’s bridge. 

“Trust me,” is all Kylo cares to say.

“I don’t,” says Hux quickly. “I don’t trust you. I’ve never trusted anyone.”

That isn’t Kylo’s problem. He shrugs it off. Trust is irrelevant when you can read minds. At any rate, he can’t leave Hux outside the cave in the snow. He’d die, and Snoke wants Hux alive to build the Starkiller weapon.

Kylo wants Hux alive for other reasons. No matter how many times a day he tells himself Hux is useless, spiritually deficient, inferior in every way, he can’t make himself believe his own thoughts. But this isn’t the time to dwell on his inconvenient feelings for Hux. They’re stranded on an ice planet, with a cave complex full of Light Side crystals beneath their feet. The risks they face are myriad. Hux should be the last thing on Kylo’s mind.

Hux puts his arm around Kylo’s shoulders again, this time lacing it underneath Kylo’s insulated cloak. When Hux looks at Kylo, his mouth is straight and tight and his eyes are apprehensive. But his thin hand curls around Kylo’s shoulder, grasping it.

“Onward, then?” Hux swallows, sets his jaw.

His face is close to Kylo’s. The snow swirls down around them still, and the white of the ice cliff shines in the dark pupils of Hux’s eyes. It would be easy, too easy for Kylo to lean forward just a few inches and brush his parted lips over Hux’s. Hux might pull away in shocked outrage, but there’s a chance he wouldn’t. There’s a chance he would open his lips too, tip his head back and moan into Kylo’s mouth, offer his slight body to Kylo’s touch, falling into his arms...

Kylo turns his face forward and pulls Hux with him as he steps into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ch2 is already written, and Ch3 is mostly done. I don't really like doing multichaps, but this one divided itself naturally into segments, so.
> 
> As usual, I’m on twitter at [sternfleck](https://twitter.com/sternfleck) and on tumblr at [sternfleck](https://sternfleck.tumblr.com/).


	2. The Light and the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a delay caused only by my own lack of confidence, I have at last been coaxed into posting chapter two—the actual good part of this fic. Hope you enjoy!

The starlight dies within a few paces from the cave’s mouth. All is dark. Hux clings to Kylo’s shoulders, heavy and light all at once, and the weight of Hux’s body steadies Kylo as he reaches out with the Force to perceive the way forward.

The cavern is warmer than the air outside, and it’s narrow, though it grows wider at its deepest points, far ahead. Kylo can see the contours of it in the Force, mapped in his mind, traced in crystal. The kyber energies are heavy, like a secondary species of gravity. Dragging Kylo down with Hux to the planet’s centre, as though their own will to return to space is less important than the planet’s plans for them.

Indeed, Ilum has a presence in the Force that’s reminiscent of a sentient being’s signature, though much larger and...slower, somehow. It’s an ancient consciousness, and it transmits no thoughts or memories or feelings of its own. Nevertheless, the planet is aware of Kylo, just as he’s aware of it. It’s unsettling. He almost envies Hux’s ignorance.

Hux is holding so tightly to Kylo’s shoulder that his fingers will leave bruises behind. His heartbeat is rapid, a little flickering thing thing in the darkness, and his breaths in Kylo’s ear are shallow and fast.

Old memories pour out of Hux as loud as words. Another deep darkness, a locked door. Isolation. Hunger. Tight durasteel walls. The distant ceaseless scream of a starship’s nuclear reactor, far below. These flashbacks are pure emotion, bereft of Hux’s usual cold logic. The memories of a child.

“Count your steps,” Kylo says. His voice echoes in the dark, distorted and watery, as if he’s spoken through his helmet. “Don’t think about anything else.”

This was Skywalker’s advice to his young apprentices, all those years ago. Kylo doesn’t analyse his impulse to pass on Skywalker's words. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is to calm Hux down, so his memories don’t distract Kylo from his task. The cavern floor is riddled with slick places and pools of slush, and the ceiling is sharp with dripping mineral formations. It takes concentration to avoid these hazards in the dark.

“One,” says Hux. “Two. Thr—”

“Not out loud. In your head. Breathe in time with my breath.”

“Is this some sort of Force ritual?”

Kylo shakes his head, before remembering Hux can’t see him. “No. It’s to make you stop thinking. You need to get out of your memories.” If Hux falls into the past, he’ll drag Kylo with him, back into Ben Solo’s memories of this place. Back to the terrible Light, where all will be lost.

“Don’t look at my memories, Ren,” says Hux, his shaky voice outraged. “They’re private.”

“You’re broadcasting. The Force is strong here. I can see anything in your head like you’re showing it to me.”

Hux curses. The whispered vulgarity echoes off the cavern walls. “Just my luck to be stranded with a kriffing telepath.”

“It is your luck. The Force will connect me to Leader Snoke. We’d already be dead without it.” 

Hux doesn’t reply, only presses closer to Kylo, hip to hip. His thoughts are calmer now, though. He’s focused on Kylo’s steady breaths, his own breaths growing more even in response. Kylo didn’t expect him to take the advice. The intimacy of Hux’s attention makes Kylo feel exposed in a dangerous, tender way.

Distracted, Kylo nearly steps into a slippery pool of liquid water. Tiny blind fishes scatter away from his foot, their Force-signatures star-bright in the darkness. On the cavern’s ceiling, worms and other soft sightless creatures suck at the minerals seeping from the rock.

Kylo won’t tell Hux they’re surrounded by alien beings, however small and fragile. Hux can barely tolerate humans, let alone any other species. He already has his hand on his blaster—a reflexive reaction to the situation’s unfamiliarity.

To calm him, Kylo hitches his hand tighter around Hux’s waist. Hux responds with a sharp little gasp that hits Kylo in the pit of his stomach, sliding lower, hot as the touch of the Force.

Hux says something, his voice tense and quiet. But Kylo doesn’t catch the words. The cavern throws Hux’s voice, makes it sound like it’s coming from somewhere else.

“What?”

“I didn’t say anything,” hisses Hux. “Did you hear something? I didn’t hear anything.” His fingers tighten again on Kylo’s shoulder, his heart returning to its quick, flickering pace.

“No. Nothing. Just our footsteps.”

 _You’ve come back to us,_ says the voice, echoing in Kylo’s head. _You never could stay away._

Fuck.

_You are welcome here, Ben Solo. And your bright companion. There is nothing to fear._

That’s rich, coming from the Light-soaked voice of the planet’s kyber core. There’s everything to fear. Can’t the energies of this place tell he’s not Ben Solo anymore? He’s changed. Even the crystal in his saber is split and bled, altered forever. He’ll never be the boy called Ben Solo again.

Kylo ignores the voice. But ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. It sounds like dripping water, like crumbling stone, like clawed fingernails scraping over ice. Ancient. Pure.

With words and visions, it whispers to Kylo of the millennia of Jedi rituals performed in these caves. The younglings on their ritual quests, brought face-to-face with their worst fears. The crystals, which can read and influence the thoughts of those who come here to Ilum to test themselves. The failures, the disgraces, the shattered minds in the aftermath. The triumphs. Those who, like Ben Solo, walked from the caverns with new, sure purpose.

_But you are no Jedi. You are split open. The cracks in your spirit will let in the light and the dark._

Kylo swallows. His throat bobs. His hair is lank and wet with melted snow, hanging into his face and tickling his nose. Though he doesn’t need his eyes to see, he brushes his hair away, tucking it behind his ears. He holds tight to Hux. The weight on his arm is the one sure thing in this shifting maze, in this endless darkness polluted with whispering Light.

“Ren, how deep does this cavern go? Are we near to...to what you’re looking for?”

It takes a few seconds for Kylo to adjust his breathing, to be sure his voice won’t shake when he responds. “It’s deep. But we’re close to where the crystals start. You’ll see them glowing. The floor evens out. It’s easier.”

Easier for Hux. Not easier at all for Kylo. Until he bleeds the crystals and tunes them to his own Dark resonance, this planet will be a minefield of unpredictable visions and tensions. From deep within his core, Kylo summons all his Dark strength to guard himself.

“I’m going to talk, if that’s all right,” says Hux in a rush. “I could go mad down here. It’s like I’ve already died. I can’t stand the silence. I don’t know how you’re managing so well. The Force, of course.”

Kylo doesn’t answer. He’s not managing well at all, but it’s a good sign that Hux hasn’t noticed.

“This is part of the path to victory. Every military operation encounters unexpected difficulties.” Hux sounds like one of his speeches to the stormtroopers, the speeches Kylo listens to at night sometimes, when he’s lashed with Force-visions and unable to sleep. “Morale is the critical element of success. Our righteousness is beyond question, and our certainty in the First Order’s cause will lead us to inevitable triumph. The construction of this weapon will ensure—”

“Don’t talk about the weapon,” Kylo interrupts.

Ilum already knows the First Order’s plans. The planet can read Hux’s thoughts as well as Kylo can. But it seems unwise to let Hux spout off about his intent to repurpose Ilum’s sacred crystals as fuel for a machine that will kill billions.

Hux pauses, realisation setting in. “Oh no. Ren. _No._ This kriffing place isn’t listening to me, is it? Tell me we’re alone in here. I can’t stand any more mystical aberrations.” 

“No, no,” Kylo lies. “There’s nothing. It’s just. Better. To talk about other stuff.”

 _He feels more than you guess,_ says the voice from the cavern walls. In its ancient depths, there’s a hint of amusement. It’s almost pleased, laughing at the two of them.

Hux is silent for a long moment. Trying to sense whatever’s out there in the dark. Or perhaps he’s only struggling to think of something besides his weapons project, his sole obsession.

“When you were here before,” begins Hux, “Did you suffer from _seizures_ then, the way you did on your shuttle? Should I be prepared for that to happen again?”

This is possibly an even worse subject to discuss than the Starkiller weapon. What’s more, Kylo never _said_ in so many words that he’d been to Ilum before. Which means Hux deduced it. Which means Hux has been thinking about Kylo, and his past. 

“It happens,” Kylo says. His visions aren’t seizures, not the way Hux thinks, but there’s no reason to explain what Hux can never understand. “It won’t happen here again. I’m strong in the Dark Side. I can withstand the Light.” 

He says it to the planet around them as much as to Hux. But Hux stiffens on Kylo’s arm. He’s seen Kylo’s breakdowns when the pull to the Light gets too strong. The _Finalizer_ bears the scars of Kylo’s lightsaber across bulkheads and consoles. Once, Kylo injured one of Hux’s lower officers with an uncontrolled blow from the Force. The man died in medbay, a necessary sacrifice to Kylo’s allegiance to the Dark Side. 

“If I can facilitate your efforts in any way,” says Hux stiffly, “let me know. It’s to our mutual benefit for you to remain, ah, competent. So to speak.”

If they were on the _Finalizer_ , Kylo would interpret this as a dig at his capabilities. But there’s no malice in Hux’s voice, and when he speaks, his breath is hot on Kylo’s cheek. Hux smells like minerals, like snow. 

“It’s possible I could walk on my own, if I’m tiring you like this.” Hux loosens his grip on Kylo’s shoulders and starts to pull away.

“No. You’ll fall.”

With the Force, Kylo presses Hux’s arm around his shoulders again. Hux shivers, snorts his disdain for Kylo’s powers. But Kylo doesn’t care. Hux’s weight on him keeps Kylo aware of his body. If he forgets himself, the Light is waiting. Ben Solo is waiting, a hungry ghost. Kylo needs Hux to remind him of the life he has chosen. Hux knows him only as the man Kylo has chosen to be.

Just a few hours ago, the thought of _needing_ anyone—let alone General Hux—would have troubled Kylo as much as his own inner battle of Light and Dark. People aren’t made to be needed. They’re made to be used and thrown away. There are times when Kylo has used Hux, feeding off his irritation or needling him for amusement. But so far, Kylo has never managed to get rid of Hux. Even while unconscious during the shuttle crash, Kylo used the Force to save Hux. He didn’t save anyone or anything else on board. Only Hux. 

Ahead, faint and hazy, something is visible in the dark. The tiniest light. It hits Kylo in the Force like the presence of a long-lost friend. The first crystal of Ilum’s kyber reserves, smaller than a fist, emitting a steady blue glow.

“Ah,” Hux cries. “You were telling the truth.”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Kylo mutters, squeezing Hux’s waist.

Hux’s breath hitches, almost a laugh. He squeezes Kylo’s shoulder in response, unmistakably triumphant.

The feelings in the Force around Hux, amplified by the kyber, are too bright and warm for Kylo to linger in. Relief, gratitude. An awed admiration that hits Kylo like a kick to the chest. And underneath, deeper still, a longing warm and open enough to make Kylo ache at the sight of it.

It’s like a glimpse into a mirror. His own inconvenient feelings about Hux, reflected back. But Kylo has never liked mirrors. They show too much he doesn’t want to see. With effort, Kylo pulls away into his own thoughts again.

There are more crystals after the first, big and small, blue and green and white, with a scattered few glowing gold or violet. Kylo glances at Hux in the dim glow. The cool light makes Hux’s skin even more pale, except for a dark place on his lip where he’s bitten it bloody. His eyes are shining, starry with reflections of the crystals.

Hux catches Kylo’s gaze on him and meets it, pausing, tilting his face up just a fraction. He parts his lips, as though he means to speak. But he doesn’t say anything. His eyes move over Kylo’s face, his lank snow-wet hair, his ears. His mouth.

“Come on,” says Kylo, before he can do something reckless. “Still a long way to go.”

Hux shuts his eyes, a long blink, breaking the spell. Opens them. He nods.

They walk on.

The crystals increase in size as they go deeper. They rise like a city skyline from every surface of the cave, faceted and shining. The caverns branch apart into side passages, but through the Force, Kylo can see the shortest path, and anyway, all the caves lead to the planet’s core. The floor is dry here, dusty white, likely undisturbed for centuries. No more of the worms and weird fishes that lived in the wet part of the cave.

Once in a while, behind a crystal, Kylo spots a pair of small shining eyes. Some little creatures, furred or scaled, living off the energy of the kyber. Whatever the creatures are, they’re afraid of humans, and they scuttle into the shadows as Kylo and Hux pass by. The creatures are Force-sensitive, too. Kylo’s awareness mingles with theirs. Their thoughts are meaningless, not sentient.

Still, it’s better to have a few aliens running around than to be alone with the Light. If all else fails, Kylo and Hux will have something to eat.

The voice is louder here, when it speaks to Kylo. Stronger. More physical, if not any more human.

 _Fall into what you fear,_ it says. _Name your desire. Find your power there._

That doesn’t sound like the Light Side of the Force. The Light spoke to Ben Solo of detachment, of calm. It showed him the peace at the end of the universe, when all goes cold and every atom is still.

Ilum, though, is a nexus for both sides of the Force, not only the Light. Kyber crystals are Light-attuned, at least until they’re bled, but the Dark Side is present on Ilum too. If Kylo can find the right frequency, if he can choose the right voices to listen to...

That’s always been Kylo’s weakest point of judgment. He listened to Organa, and then to Skywalker. Two great mistakes. He listened to Ren, the first Master of the Knights of Ren, and failed to learn true power under his tutelage. He’s been listening to Snoke in his head since he was a boy, but lately, Kylo has begun to wonder whether Snoke will ever give him the knowledge he seeks. Snoke seems content to exploit Kylo’s instability. He sends Kylo out into the spiritual abyss between the two sides of the Force and expects him to come back stronger every time. But Kylo isn’t getting stronger. He’s only getting used to existing in this liminal place, torn between two halves of himself, belonging nowhere.

His true master is the Force. It always will be. The Force surpasses all human power. But the Force speaks with many voices, and the hardest task for Kylo is to know which to trust.

What was it Hux said out on the ice? _I’ve never trusted anyone._

If Hux could use the Force, he wouldn’t suffer from uncertainty. Hux knows himself, knows what he wants. _Name your desire._

Kylo turns his head a fraction of an inch, letting his eyes rove over Hux’s face. Hux’s hair is drying, the red-gold colour dimmed to grey in the half-light from the bluish crystals. His eyes are fixed dully on some indefinite point ahead. He’s still in pain, his bent wrist pressed to his chest, and he must be hungry and thirsty without the Force to drive him onward. But he hasn’t asked Kylo to stop for rest.

Hux notices Kylo’s eyes on him, of course. “Do you want something?”

Kylo shakes his head. A lie.

“I can walk on my own,” Hux says. “I could. If you needed me to.”

“I’m not tired,” says Kylo, which is true. “I can carry you if you want.”

Hux’s eyes widen, scanning over Kylo’s face for some sign of mirth or mockery. Kylo keeps his face impassive. He’ll let Hux decide if he’s joking or not.

“I’ve never...no one has ever done that. Carried me. I don’t think I’ve ever actually been _in contact_ with anyone for this long. Physically, I mean.”

Hux gives a dry little bark of laughter at his own words, or the idea of physical contact, or being carried, or at the situation as a whole. But Kylo doesn’t laugh. Possessed by impulse, he slides his hand up Hux’s body from his waist to his chest, and, at the same time, uses the Force to lift Hux a couple of centimetres off the ground.

There’s a beat of silence before Hux tries to take a step and realises what Kylo has done. His hand scrabbles at Kylo’s shoulder in helpless shock. He gives a dismayed cry, glaring at Kylo with his mouth downturned in an almost comical expression.

“Ren! We’re stranded in a cavern. This is not the time for your Force mischief. Put me down.”

“We’re the same height now,” Kylo points out, staring into Hux’s eyes.

Hux’s scowl deepens. “Ren. I understand you derive great joy from my humiliation. But I am injured, and I lack the advantage of crystal witchcraft to augment my personal reserves of energy. Which are dwindling. Don’t toy with me. Please.”

Hux’s voice wavers. At the last word, his eyes shut.

A flare of desire swirls through the Force, broadcasted out of Hux’s presence against his will. Hux’s protests are genuine, but there’s another part of Hux that is set alight by this feeling of being held at Kylo’s mercy. Hux is coming apart under the weight of Kylo’s hand on his chest. He wants more of it with a desperation that sears. Hux is dizzy from the touch of Kylo’s Force-power everywhere around him, like a reprieve from Ilum’s gravity.

Sensing it makes Kylo’s mouth go dry. He doesn’t trust himself to keep holding Hux like this without moving to close the gap between their bodies.

Kylo dials his power down slowly, returning Hux’s feet to the ground. But he keeps his arm around Hux, his hand on Hux’s chest. The tension in Hux’s Force presence doesn’t diminish.

Hux lifts his chin a fraction, baring his white throat. To all appearances, he’s composed, his dignity restored. Ever the perfect soldier. But here among millions of Force-amplifying crystals, Kylo can’t shut out the pulses of need emanating from Hux, even when Kylo tries to break their connection and cut himself off. And it’s not just Hux who’s broadcasting his longing. Kylo’s Force-presence is sticky with the same impulse, pouring out into the caverns and mingling with the living Force of the kyber. It’s hard to imagine Hux can’t feel any of it.

Worst of all, Hux is terribly, achingly beautiful in the kyber glow. His exhausted eyes and wind-chapped lips no longer make him look pathetic. Instead, he looks almost post-coital—Kylo imagines lips broken from hours of kissing, Hux ready to fall asleep in his arms. Washed in soft blue-green, Hux is like something from another Galaxy. A better Galaxy, where Kylo knows his place and his power. Where he’s no longer torn apart by the pull to the Light.

“We’re almost there,” Kylo mutters, hoarse. With Hux’s arm around his shoulders, he begins to walk.

But Kylo isn’t sure anymore what he’ll do when they get to the big crystals close to the planet’s core. On the planet’s icy surface, in the weak light of Ilum’s star, things seemed simple: find a powerful kyber cave, meditate, contact Snoke. Return to the _Finalizer_ , to his everyday life, where Snoke is his master and Hux is his rival and Kylo is alone, unspeakably lonely and alone. 

Now nothing is simple. The Light and the Dark have plied him with their indistinguishable whispers until Kylo can no longer tell his path. Hux has shown him a blazing mirror of his desires, and the Force has not allowed Kylo to turn away.

Whatever is ahead of him, it will not be like the past. But Kylo has to face the future. He can only go forward, never back.

So Kylo walks on, boots in the dry sand, Hux’s uneven footsteps echoing beside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [aelandair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelandair), [partialresonance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partialresonance/pseuds/partialresonance), and [TheSpaceCoyote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote) for showing me there was demand for more of this story. You asked, and you have received!
> 
> As always, I'm sternfleck on [twitter](https://twitter.com/sternfleck) and [tumblr](https://sternfleck.tumblr.com/).
> 
> -
> 
> UPDATE: [there's art for this chapter](https://twitter.com/RabidSola/status/1308206376414580736), thanks to the wonderful [partialresonance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partialresonance/pseuds/partialresonance)!!!! Kylo and Hux getting intimate in the crystal cave!


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